One of the things I love about the early hot stove season is the crazy trade talk. Once things get going hot and heavy in December people get realistic, but in the few days after a team is eliminated you get all kinds of insane speculation.

An excellent example of it comes in Jeff Schultz’s column at the AJC today. The overall point — should the Braves trade Jair Jurrjens? — is an interesting and valuable one. Maybe they should, if he’s not already seen as damaged goods. But the tag at the end of the piece is red meat for my crazy trade talk fixation:

I’ll leave you with this: Columbus, Ga., native and St. Louis center field Colby Rasmus clashed this season with manager Tony La Russaand
requested a trade two months ago. Would you be willing to part with
Jurrjens if he was part of a Rasmus trade?

The answer, yes. And I’d even be willing to throw in a couple hundred bucks to pay for the lobotomy that would be required for John Mozeliak to even consider it.

But the real beauty of that is the reference to Rasmus being from Columbus, Georgia. As if he’d have any real say in where he goes, thereby rendering the Braves a more likely target, even if the Cardinals were foolish enough to trade him. It’s that kind of little hook — geography usually, but sometimes a relationship with one of the target team’s coaches or something — that really makes the “hey, what the hell” trade speculation special.

I’m not trying to slam Schultz here. Fans and bloggers and stuff are way worse about coming up with silly trade scenarios. Just using his piece as an example of the stuff we can expect a flood of after the postseason is over. It’s what keeps us warm in the cold winter months, ya know?

If the redbirds were stupid enough to trade Rasmus, they certainly would not trade him to Atlanta. He would be headed for say Seattle, where he would never see the inside of Bush Stadium again. And they would need to get a much better player(s) in trade.